LITTLE LENIN LIBRARYVOLUME 8

LETTERSFROM AFAR

By V. I. LENIN

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS381 FOURTH AVENUE • NEW YORK

LETTERSFROM AFAR

BY

V. I. LENIN

INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERSNEW YORK

Copyright, 1932, byINTERNATIONAL PUBLISHERS CO ., INC .

Reprinted from The Revolution of 1917, by V. I . LeninPRINTED IN THE U.S .A.

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EDITOR'S FOREWORD

NEWS of the outbreak of the revolution, the establishment ofSoviets in Petrograd and Moscow, the abdication of the Tsar andthe formation of the bourgeois Provisional Government reachedLenin in Zurich, Switzerland, through the extra editions of the localnewspapers on March 15, 1917 . The following day he wrote toAlexandra Kollontai in Norway that "the `first stage of the firstrevolution' bred by the war will be neither final nor confined tcRussia" and observed that, although the workers, supported by therevolutionary soldiers, had carried through the revolution, statepower was seized by the bourgeoisie according to "the same `old'European pattern."

With great avidity Lenin absorbs all the news from Russia inthe English, French and German papers he can lay his hands onand thinks of how speedily he can end his years of exile and returnto the scene of action among the Petrograd workers where he beganhis revolutionary work more than twenty years before . On March17 he writes again to Kollontai, making arrangements to obtaindirect news from his co-workers in Russia, and completes the draftof the theses outlining his views on the revolution .

In his preliminary theses Lenin adjures his comrades to be pre-pared for the possible attempt to restore the monarchy and toconsider the Provisional Government, which has "snatched" powerfrom the proletariat, as having the same imperialist aims in thewar as the Tsar's government . After making a class analysis ofthe government in power, showing that it is nothing but a govern-ment of capitalists and landowners, Lenin proves that it cannot givethe masses what they expect from the revolution-peace, bread andfreedom. Only "a complete victory of the next stage of the revo-lution and the conquest of power by a workers' government" couldsecure the fruits of the revolution for the broad masses of thepeople .

Not unity with the vacillating and compromising parties activeamong the workers and peasants, but the building of a revolution-ary Socialist party and a relentless struggle for the leadership ofthe continually rising revolutionary masses ; not confidence in theProvisional Government, but a vigorous campaign of exposure ofits true capitalist nature and imperialist aims-this is what Lenininsists upon in his first brief messages to the Bolsheviks in Russia ."Spread out! Arouse new strata! Awaken new initiative, formnew organisations in every layer, and prove to them that peace can

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come only with the armed Soviet of Workers' Deputies in power,"are Lenin's clarion call to his comrades-in-arms .

During March 20-April 8 Lenin wrote the famous five "Lettersfrom Afar" which are reproduced here in full (pp. 5-42) . Thelast letter, written on the day of his departure for Russia, was notcompleted. The first letter, "The First Stage of the First Revo-lution," reached Petrograd and was published in the Pravda, April3-4, while the other four were published only after Lenin's deathin 1924 . This series of letters, the main ideas of which the readerwill find summarised by Lenin at the beginning of the fifth letter(p. 40), touched upon all the fundamental problems of the revo-lution and charted the course of its development . They carry theimprint of the genius that was Lenin-his Marxist clarity, acuterevolutionary perception, abounding faith in the masses-foreshad-owing who was to be the recognised organiser and leader of theRussian Revolution and the founder of the workers' state whichcovers one-sixth of the earth's surface.

The Russian Revolution has opened the epoch of the world pro-letarian revolution, Lenin informs the revolutionary workers ofother countries . On April 8, the day of his departure for Russia,he pens his "Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers" (pp. 42-48)aimed to reach beyond the confines of the Swiss labor movement .The Bolshevik viewpoint of the nature of the Russian Revolution,the attitude toward the imperialist war, and the situation in theinternational Socialist movement are presented by Lenin . Writtenat the same time and dealing with the international significanceand tasks of the Russian Revolution, the "Farewell Letter" may beconsidered complementary to the "Letters from Afar" which is thereason for its inclusion in this booklet .

In reprinting the "Letters from Afar" as a separate volume inthe Little Lenin Library, the publishers call attention to Volumes8 to 13 in this series which include selected writings of Leninfrom the overthrow of the Tsar in March to the seizure of power inNovember, 1917 . These writings cover the most important stagesof the developing revolution and the part played in it by theBolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin . The reader is alsodirected to Volumes XX and XXI of Lenin's Collected works,covering the entire period of the Revolution of 1917 and containingall the writings and speeches of Lenin during this period . In thesevolumes will be found also numerous explanatory and biographicalnotes which will aid the reader in understanding the events of theperiod and the various allusions made by Lenin.

ALEXANDER TRACHTENBERG .

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LETTERS FROM AFARFIRST LETTER

THE FIRST STAGE OF THE FIRST REVOLUTION

THE first revolution arising out of the imperialist World Warhas broken out . This first revolution will, certainly, not be thelast.

The first stage of this first revolution, namely, the Russian revolu-tion of March 14, 1917, is over, according to the scanty informa-tion at the writer's disposal in Switzerland. Surely this first stageof our revolution will not be the last one .

How could such a "miracle" happen, that in eight days-theperiod indicated by M. Miliukov in his boastful telegram to all therepresentatives of Russia abroad-a monarchy that had maintaineditself for centuries, and continued to maintain itself during threeyears of tremendous national class conflicts of 1905-1907, couldutterly collapse?

There are no miracles in nature or in history, yet every suddenturn in history, including every revolution, presents such a wealthof material, it unfolds such unexpectedly peculiar co-ordinations offorms of conflict and alignment of fighting forces, that there ismuch that must appear miraculous to the burgher's mind .

A combination of a whole series of conditions of world-widehistoric importance was required for the tsarist monarchy to col-lapse in a few days. Let us point out the principal ones .

Without the three years, 1905-1907, of tremendous class conflictsand of revolutionary energy of the Russian proletariat, this secondrevolution could not possibly have had the rapid progress indicatedin the fact that its first phase was accomplished in a few days . Thefirst revolution (1905) ploughed the ground deeply and uprootedthe prejudices of centuries ; it awakened to political life and strug-gle millions of workers and tens of millions of peasants . Thefirst revolution revealed to the workers and peasants, as well as tothe world, all the classes (and all the principal parties) of Russiansociety in their true character ; the actual alignment of their in-

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terests, their powers and modes of action, their immediate andultimate objectives . This first revolution, and the succeedingcounter-revolutionary period (1907-1914), fully revealed the natureof the tsarist monarchy as having reached the "utmost limit" ; itexposed all the infamy and vileness, all the cynicism and corruptionof the tsarist clique dominated by that monster, Rasputin ; it ex-posed all the bestiality of the Romanov family-that band ofassassins which bathed Russia in the blood of the Jews, the workers,the revolutionaries-those landowners, "first among peers," whoowned millions of acres of land and would stoop to any brutality,to any crime-ready to ruin or crush any section of the population,however numerous, in order to preserve the "sacred property rights"for themselves and for their class .

Without the revolution of 1905-1907, without the counter-revolu-tion of 1907-1914, it would have been impossible to secure so cleara "self-determination" of all classes of the Russian people and ofall the peoples inhabiting Russia, a clarification of the relation ofthese classes to each other and to the tsarist monarchy, as transpiredduring the eight days of the March revolution . This eight-dayrevolution, if we may express ourselves in terms of metaphors, was"performed" after a dozen informal as well as dress rehearsals ;the "actors" knew each other and their roles, their places, and theentire setting ; they knew every detail through and through, downto the last more or less significant shade of political tendency andmode of action .

But, in order that the first great revolution of 1905, which Messrs .Guchkov and Miliukov and their satellites condemned as a "greatrebellion" should, after the lapse of a dozen years, lead to the"glorious revolution" of 1917-so termed by the Guchkovs andMiliukovs because (for the present) it has put them into power-there was still needed a great, mighty, all-powerful "regisseur,"who was, on the one hand, in a position to accelerate the courseof history on a grand scale, and, on the other, to produce world-wide crises of unheard-of intensity : economic, political, nationaland international. In addition to an unusual acceleration of worldhistory, there were also needed particularly sharp historic turnsso that during one of them the blood-stained chariot of tsarism mightbe overturned in a trice .

This all-powerful "regisseur," this mighty accelerator of events,was the imperialist World War.

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Now it can no longer be doubted that this war is world-wide,for the United States and China have been half dragged in already,and to-morrow will be completely involved in it .

Nor can it any longer be doubted that the war is imperialisticon both sides. Only the capitalists and their satellites, the social-patriots and social-chauvinists, can deny or suppress this fact .Both the German and the Anglo-French bourgeoisie are waging warfor the grabbing of foreign territory, for the strangulation of smallnations, for financial supremacy over the world, for the divisionand redistribution of colonies, for saving the tottering capitalistregime by means of deceiving and disuniting the workers in thevarious countries .

It was objectively inevitable that the imperialist war should im-mensely quicken and unusually sharpen the class struggle of theproletariat against the bourgeoisie, and transform itself into acivil war between hostile classes .

This transformation has been started by the March revolution,whose first stage has shown us, first, a joint attack on tsarism de-livered by two forces : on the one hand, the whole bourgeois andlandowning class of Russia, with all their unenlightened followersand very enlightened managers, in the persons of the Anglo-Frenchambassadors and capitalists ; and, on the other, the Soviet ofWorkers' and Soldiers' Deputies .

These three political camps, three fundamental political forces :(1) The tsarist monarchy, the head of the feudal landowning class,the head of the old bureaucracy and of the higher military com-manders ; (2) the Russia of the bourgeoisie and landowners repre-sented by the Octobrists and Cadets, with the petty bourgeoisie intheir wake; (3) the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies,seeking for allies among the entire proletariat and the whole massof the poorest population-these three fundamental political forceshave revealed themselves with utmost clarity even in the first eightdays of the "first stage." This is evident even to such an observeras the present writer who is far away from the scene of eventsand is compelled to confine himself to the meagre dispatches offoreign papers .

But before going into further detail in this matter, I must comeback to that portion of my letter which is devoted to a factor offirst importance, namely, the imperialist World War .

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The belligerent powers, the belligerent groups of capitalists, the"masters" of the capitalist system, and the slave-drivers of capi-talist slavery, have been shackled to each other by the war withchains of iron . One bloody lump, that is the socio-political lifeof the historic period through which we are now passing .

The Socialists who deserted to the bourgeoisie at the beginningof the war, all the Davids and Scheidemanns in Germany, thePlekhanovs, Potresovs, Gvozdevs and Co . in Russia, have long beenshouting lustily against the "illusions" of the revolutionists, againstthe "illusions" of the Basle Manifesto, against the "dream farce"of turning the imperialist war into civil war . They have sunghymns of praise to the alleged strength, tenacity and adaptabilityof capitalism, while they were aiding the capitalists in "adapting,"taming, deceiving and disuniting the working classes of the variouscountries !

But "he who laughs last laughs best ." The bourgeoisie was notable to delay for very long the coming of the revolutionary crisisproduced by the war. This crisis is growing with irresistible forcein all countries, beginning with Germany where, according to arecent observer who visited that country, there is "hunger organisedwith the ability of genius," and down to England and Francewhere hunger is also looming, though it is not so "wonderfully"organised .

It is natural that the tsarist Russia, where disorganisation wasmonstrous, where the proletariat is the most revolutionary in theworld (not due to any specific characteristics, but because of thevivid traditions of "1905"), the revolutionary crisis should haveburst forth earlier than anywhere else . The crisis was hastenedby a number of most serious defeats inflicted on Russia and herallies. These defeats disorganised the entire old mechanism of gov-ernment and the entire old system ; they aroused the indignation ofall classes of the population ; they incensed the army and largelywiped out the old body of commanders hailing from the backwardnobility and particularly from the rotten officialdom, replacing it'with a young and buoyant one of a predominantly bourgeois, petty-bourgeois and declassed origin .

But, if military defeats played the role of a negative factor thathastened the outbreak, the alliance of Anglo-French finance-capital,of Anglo-French imperialism, with the Octobrist and Constitutional-

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Democratic * capital of Russia appeared as a factor that speededthis crisis.

This highly important phase of the situation is, for obviousreasons, not mentioned by the Anglo-French press while maliciouslyemphasised by the German . We Marxists must face the truthsoberly, being confused neither by the official lies, the sugarydiplomatic and ministerial lies of one group of imperialist bel-ligerents, nor by the sniggering and smirking of its financial andmilitary rivals of the other belligerent group . The whole course ofevents in the March revolution shows clearly that the English andFrench embassies with their agents and "associates," who had longmade the most desperate efforts to prevent a "separate" agreementand a separate peace between Nicholas II (let us hope and strivethat he be the last) and Wilhelm II, strove directly to dethroneNicholas Romanov.

Let us not harbour any illusions.The fact that the revolution succeeded so quickly and, apparently,

at the first superficial glance, so "radically," is due to an unusualhistorical conjuncture where there combined, in a strikingly "favour-able" manner, absolutely dissimilar movements, absolutely differentclass interests, absolutely opposed political and social tendencies .There was the conspiracy of the Anglo-French imperialists whoencouraged Miliukov, Guchkov and Co. to seize power, with theobject of prolonging the imperialist war, with the object of con-ducting the war more savagely and obstinately, with the object ofslaughtering new millions of Russian workers and peasants, in orderthat the Guchkovs might obtain Constantinople ; the French, Syria ;the English capitalists, Mesopotamia, etc . This, on the one side.On the other, there was a profound proletarian and popular massmovement (of the entire poorest population of the cities and vil-lages) of a revolutionary character, for bread, for peace, for realfreedom.

The revolutionary workers and soldiers have destroyed the in-famous tsarist monarchy to its very foundations, being neitherelated nor constrained by the fact that, at certain brief historicmoments of an exceptional combination of circumstances, they areaided by the struggle of Buchanan, Guchkov, Miliukov and Co ., whosimply desire to replace one monarch by another .

a The parties of big capital and landowners, and liberal bourgeoisie respec-tively.Ed.

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Thus, and only thus, did it occur . Thus, and only thus, mustbe the view of the politician who is not afraid of the truth, whosoberly weighs the interrelation of social forces in a revolution,who evaluates every given moment not only from the viewpoint ofits present peculiarities, but also from the standpoint of the morefundamental motives, the deeper interrelation of the interests ofthe proletariat and the bourgeoisie, in Russia as well as throughoutthe world.The workers and soldiers of Petrograd, as well as the workers

and soldiers of all Russia, self-sacrificingly fought against thetsarist monarchy-for freedom, for land for the peasants, forpeace as against the imperialist slaughter . Anglo-French im-perialist capital, in order to continue and develop the slaughter,engaged in court intrigues, it framed conspiracies, incited and en-couraged the Guchkovs and Miliukovs, and contrived a new govern-ment, which, ready made, seized power after the proletarianstruggle had delivered the first blows against tsarism .

This government is not a fortuitous assemblage of persons .They are the representatives of the new class that has risen to

political power in Russia, the class of the capitalist landowners andbourgeoisie that for a long time has been ruling our country eco-nomically, and that, in the revolution of 1905-1907, in the counter-revolutionary period of 1907-1914, and then, with extraordinaryrapidity, in the period of the war of 1914-1917, organised itselfpolitically, taking into its hands local self-government, populareducation, conventions of every type, the Duma, the war industriescommittees, etc . This new class was almost in power in 1917 ;therefore the first blows against tsarism were sufficient to destroythe latter, and to clear the ground for the bourgeiosie . The im-perialist war, requiring an incredible exertion of strength, soaccelerated the course of development of backward Russia that ata single stroke (at least it seems like a single stroke) we have caughtup with Italy, England, even France ; we have attained a "coali-tion," a "national," "parliamentary" government (i . e ., a governmentadapted to carrying on the imperialist slaughter and deceiving thepeople) .

Alongside of this government, which, as regards the present war,is but the clerk of the billion-dollar "firms" England and France,there has arisen a new, unofficial, as yet undeveloped and compara-tively weak, workers' government, expressing the interests of the

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workers and of all the poorer elements of the city and countrypopulation. This is the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers'Deputies.

Such is the actual political situation which we must first of alltry to establish with the greatest possible objective precision, inorder that we may base Marxist tactics on the only solid foundationupon which they should be based-the foundation of facts .

The tsarist monarchy has been beaten, but not destroyed .The Octobrist-Cadet bourgeois government, wishing to carry on

the imperialist war "to a finish," is in reality the agent of thefinancial firm "England and France" ; it is forced to promise tothe people a maximum of liberties and pittances compatible withthe maintenance by this government of its power over the peopleand the possibility of continuing the imperialist war .

The Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies is a workers' gov-ernment in embryo, a representative of the interests of all thepoorest masses of the population, i . e., of nine-tenths of the popula-tion which is striving for peace, bread, and liberty.

The conflict among these three forces determines the situationas it is at present, a transition stage from the first phase of the revo-lution to the second .

In order that there may be a real struggle against the tsaristmonarchy, in order that freedom may really be secured, not merelyin words, not in the promises of rhetorical liberalism, it is necessarynot that the workers should support the new government, but thatthis government should support the workers! For the only guar-antee of liberty and of a complete destruction of tsarism is the arm-ing of the proletariat, the strengthening, broadening, and develop-ing of the role, and significance, and power of the Soviets ofWorkers' and Soldiers' Deputies .

All the rest is mere phrases and lies, the self-deception of thepoliticians of the liberal and radical stamp .

Help the arming of the workers, or, at least, do not interfere withit, and the liberty of Russia is invincible, the monarchy incapableof restoration, the republic secured .

Otherwise the people will be deceived . Promises are cheap ;promises cost nothing . It is on promises that all the bourgeoispoliticians in all the bourgeois revolutions have been feeding thepeople and fooling the workers .

"Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution, therefore the workers11

must support the bourgeoisie," say the worthless politicians amongthe Liquidators .*

"Our revolution is a bourgeois revolution," say we Marxists,"therefore the workers must open the eyes of the people to thedeceptive practices of the bourgeois politicians, must teach thepeople not to believe in words, but to depend wholly on their ownstrength, on their own organisation, on their own unity, and on theirown arms."

The government of the Octobrists and Cadets, of the Guchkovsand Miliukovs, could give neither peace, nor bread, nor freedom,even if it were sincere in its desire to do so .

It cannot give peace because it is a government for war, a gov-ernment for the continuation of the imperialist slaughter, a govern-ment of conquest, a government that has not uttered one word torenounce the tsarist policy of seizure of Armenia, Galicia, Turkey,of capturing Constantinople, of reconquering Poland, Courland,Lithuania, etc . This government is bound hand and foot by Anglo-French imperialist capital . Russian capital is merely one branchof the world "firm" known as "England and France" manipulatinghundreds of billions of rubles.

It cannot give bread, since it is a bourgeois government . Atbest it may give the people, as the government of Germany hasdone, "hunger organised with the ability of genius ." But thepeople will not put up with hunger. The people will learn,probably very soon, that there is bread, and it can be obtainedin no other way than by means that do not show any respect forthe sanctity of capital and landownership .

It cannot give freedom, since it is a government of landownersand capitalists, which is afraid of the people .

In another article we will speak of the tactical problems con-fronting us in our immediate behaviour towards this government .There we shall show wherein consists the peculiarity of the presentmoment, which is a period of transition from the first stage ofthe revolution to the second, and why the slogan, the "orderof the day" in the present moment must be: "Workers, you havedisplayed marvels of proletarian and popular heroism in the civilwar against tsarism ; you must display marvels of proletarian and

* Reformist Socialists-Mensheviks-who proposed the liquidation of theunderground party organisation and instead favoured legal activities.Ed.

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nation-wide organisation in order to prepare your victory in thesecond stage of the revolution ."

Limiting ourselves in the meanwhile to an analysis of the classstruggle and the interrelation of class forces in this stage of therevolution, we must also raise the question : Who are the allies ofthe proletariat in this revolution?

It has two allies : first, the broad mass of the semi-proletarianand, partly, the petty peasant population of Russia, numberingscores of millions and forming the overwhelming majority of thepopulation . This great mass needs peace, bread, liberty, land.This mass will inevitably be under a certain influence of thebourgeoisie, particularly of the petty bourgeoisie, which it re-sembles rather closely in its conditions of life, vacillating, as itdoes, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The cruel lessonsof the war, which will become all the more cruel as Guchkov, Lvov,Miliukov and Co. carry on the war with greater energy, will in-evitably push this mass toward the proletariat, compelling it tofollow the proletariat. We must now, taking advantage of thefreedom under the new regime and of the Soviets of Workers' andSoldiers' Deputies, strive, first of all and above all, to enlightenand organise this mass . Soviets of Peasants' Deputies, Soviets ofAgricultural Workers,-these are among our most urgent tasks . Weshall thereby strive not only that the agricultural workers shouldestablish special Soviets of their own, but also that the poorest andpropertyless peasants should organise separately from the well-to-dopeasants. The special tasks and special forms of the organisationurgently needed at present, will be dealt with in another letter .

The second ally of the Russian proletariat is the proletariat ofthe warring countries and of all countries in general . At present,it is to a considerable degree weighed down by the war, and by thesocial-chauvinists who, like Plekhanov, Gvozdev, Potresov in Rus-sia, have deserted to the bourgeoisie, but all too often speak in theworkers' name. The liberation of the workers from their influencehas progressed with every month of the imperialist war, and theRussian Revolution will necessarily accelerate this process tre-mendously.

Hand in hand with these two allies, the proletariat of Russia canand will proceed, while utilising the peculiarities of the presenttransition moment, to win, first, a democratic republic and thevictory of the peasantry over the landlords, then Socialism, which

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alone can give peace, bread, and freedom to the peoples exhaustedby the war .

N. LENIN .Written March 20, 1917.First published in Pravda [Truth], Nos . 14-15, April 3-4, 1917 .

SECOND LETTER

THE NEW GOVERNMENT AND THE PROLETARIAT

THE most important document at my disposal up to date (March21) is the March 16 issue of the English ultra-conservative andultra-bourgeois newspaper, Times, which contains a summary of thenews dealing with the revolution in Russia . A source more favour-ably-expressing it mildly-inclined to the government of Guchkovand Miliukov, than this paper, would, of course, be difficult to find .Reporting from Petrograd on Wednesday, March 14, when there

was in existence only the first Provisional Government, i. e ., theExecutive Committee of the Duma composed of 13 men withRodzianko at their head, and including, as the paper says, two"Socialists," Kerensky and Chkheidze, the Times correspondentwrites :"A group of 22 elected members of the Upper House [State Council]

including M. Guchkov, M. Stakhovich, Prince Trubetskoy, and ProfessorsVassiliev, Grimm, and Vernadsky, yesterday addressed a telegram to theTsar," in which they implored him to save "the dynasty," etc ., etc ., byconvoking the Duma and by naming some one who enjoys the "confidenceof the nation" to head the government . "What the Emperor may decideto do on his arrival to-day is unknown at the hour of telegraphing, but onething is quite certain . Unless His Majesty immediately complies with thewishes of the most moderate elements among his loyal subjects, the influence atpresent exercised by the Provisional Committee of the Imperial Duma willpass wholesale into the hands of the Socialists, who want to see a republicestablished, but who are unable to institute any kind of orderly governmentand would inevitably precipitate the country into anarchy within and dis-aster without ."

How statesmanlike, wise, and clear! How well the English sym-pathiser (if not the leader) of the Guchkovs and the Miliukovsunderstands the interrelation of class forces and interests! "Themost moderate elements among his loyal subjects," i . e., themonarchist landowners and capitalists, want to gain power, becausethey realise perfectly well that otherwise "influence" will pass intothe hands of the "Socialists ." Why into the hands of the "Social-

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ists," and not into any other hands? Because the English Guch-kovite sees clearly that there is no other social force in the politicalarena and that there can be none . The revolution was made by theproletariat. The proletariat displayed heroism ; it shed its blood ;it swept with it the large masses of the toiling and very poor sec-tions of the population ; it demands bread, peace, and freedom ; itdemands a republic ; it sympathises with Socialism. At the sametime a handful of landowners and capitalists headed by the Guch-kovs and Miliukovs wishes to delude the will and the aspirations ofthe overwhelming majority ; it wishes to make a deal with thedisappearing monarchy, to sustain and save it . Appoint Lvov andGuchkov, Your Majesty, and we will support the monarchy againstthe people. This is the whole meaning and essence of the newgovernment's policy!

But how do they propose to justify this deception, this fooling ofthe people, this violation of the will of the vast majority of thepopulation?

By using the old and ever new method of the bourgeoisie,-bymaligning the people. Thus the English Guchkovite maligns andvilifies, spurts and sputters : "anarchy within and disaster without,"no "orderly government"!!

You are wrong, my worthy Guchkovite! The workers want arepublic, which is a much more "orderly" government than amonarchy. What assurance have the people that a second Romanovwill not establish a second Rasputin? It is the prolongation of thewar, it is the new government, that carries with it the threat ofdisaster. Only a proletarian republic, supported by the villageworkers and by the poorest section of the urban and rural popula-tion, can insure peace, bread, order, and freedom .

These outcries against anarchy are simply meant to cover up theselfish purposes of the capitalists, who are intent on enriching them-selves through the war and war loans, who are intent on restoringthe monarchy against the interests of the people .

" . . . Yesterday," continues the correspondent, "the Social-DemocraticParty issued a proclamation of a most seditious character, which was spreadbroadcast throughout the city . They are mere doctrinaires, but their powerfor mischief is enormous at a time like the present . M. Kerensky and M.Chkheidze, who realise that without the support of the officers and the moremoderate elements of the people they cannot hope to avoid anarchy, have toreckon with their less prudent associates, and are insensibly driven totake up an attitude which complicates the task of the Provisional Committee ."

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Oh, great English Guchkovite diplomat! How "imprudently"you have babbled out the truth!

The "Social-Democratic Party" and the "less prudent associates,"with whom Kerensky and Chkheidze are forced "to reckon," areevidently the Central or the Petrograd Committee of our party thatwas reconstructed by the conference of January, 1912; they arethose very "Bolsheviks" whom the bourgeoisie always denounces as ."doctrinaires" for being faithful to their "doctrine," i. e ., to thetenets, the principles, the teachings, the purposes of Socialism .Clearly, the English Guchkovite denounces as seditious and doc-trinaire the appeal and conduct of our party because it urges themasses to fight for a republic, for peace, for a complete destructionof the tsarist monarchy, for bread for the people .

Bread for the people and peace, that is sedition ; ministerialplaces for Guchkov and Miliukov, that is "order ." Old, familiartalk!

Now what are the tactics of Kerensky and Chkheidze, as charac-terised by the English Guchkovite?

They are vacillating . On the one hand, the Guchkovite praisesthem. They, he claims, "realise" (good boys! clever boys!) thatwithout the "support" of the officers and the more moderate ele-ments of the people they cannot hope to avoid anarchy (and herewe have been assuming, in accordance with our doctrine, with ourSocialist teachings, that it is the capitalists who are forcing anarchyand wars upon human society, and that only the passing of allpolitical power into the hands of the proletariat and the poorestelements of the people can rid us of wars, anarchy, hunger!) . Onthe other hand, he complains, they "have to reckon with their lessprudent associates," i . e., the Bolsheviks, the Russian Social-Demo-cratic Labour Party, reconstructed and united by the Central Com-mittee .

But what force is it that "drives" Kerensky and Chkheidze to"reckon" with the Bolshevist party, to which they have never be-longed, which they themselves or their literary representatives (theSocialists-Revolutionists, the People's Socialists, the Mensheviksof the Organisation Committee, etc.) have always denounced, con-

* The Central Committee elected at the 1912 Conference was the organisa-tional centre of the Bolsheviks, while the Organisation Committee was thatof the Mensheviks. Ed.

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of doctrinaires, etc .?When and where was it ever seen that politicians who have not

lost their senses should, in times of revolution, in times of actionof the masses,, be swayed by "doctrinaires"?

The poor English Guchkovite got completely lost . Unable tofathom the situation, he could not tell a complete lie nor the wholetruth, and succeeded only in betraying himself .

Kerensky and Chkheidze were forced to reckon with the Social-Democratic Party of the Central Committee because of the in-fluence it exercises on the proletariat, the masses . Despite thearrest and the exile to Siberia of our Deputies in 1914, despitethe severest persecutions and arrests which the Petrograd Com-mittee had suffered throughout the war for its underground activityagainst war and against tsarism, our party was found with themasses, with the revolutionary proletariat .

The English say that facts are stubborn things . May we re-mind our most worthy English Guchkovite of this saying? The factthat during the great days of the revolution our party was leading orat least bravely helping the Petrograd workers had to be admittedby the English Guchkovite himself. He also had to admit the factthat Kerensky and Chkheidze are vacillating between the bour-geoisie and the proletariat . The followers of Gvozdev, the "de-fencists," i. e., the social-chauvinists, i. e., the defenders of theimperialist, predatory war, are at the present moment in full agree-ment with the bourgeoisie. Kerensky, having become a memberof the Cabinet, i. e., of the second Provisional Government, hasalso completely joined the bourgeoisie . Chkheidze has not fol-lowed; he is still wavering between the Provisional Government ofthe bourgeoisie, of the Guchkovs and the Miliukovs, and the "pro-visional government" of the proletariat and the poorest masses ofthe people, the Soviet of Workers' Deputies and the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party united by the Central Committee .

It follows, therefore, that the revolution has proved that we wereright when we most persistently called upon the workers to realiseclearly the class distinction between the major parties and majortendencies both in the labour movement and among the petty-bourgeoisie, when, for instance, we wrote in No . 47 of the GenevaSocial-Democrat, on October 13, 1915, that is, almost a year anda half ago

17

As heretofore we regard as permissible the participation of Social-Demo-crats in a provisional revolutionary government together with the democraticgroups of the petty-bourgeoisie, but not together with the revolutionists-chauvinists . We consider as revooutionists-chauvinists those who want a vic-tory over tsarism in order to win a victory over Germany, in order to lootother countries, in order to strengthen the rule of the Great Russians over theother peoples of Russia, etc. The basis for revolutionary chauvinism is theclass position of the petty-bourgeoisie, which is always vacillating betweenthe bourgeoisie and the proletariat . To-day it vacillates between chauvinism(which prevents it from being consistently revolutionary even as regards ademocratic republic) and proletarian internationalism . The present politicalexponents of the petty-bourgeoisie in Russia are the Trudoviks,* the So-cialists-Revolutionists, the Nasha Zaria (the present Dielo), Chkheidze'sfaction, the Organisation Committee, Mr . Plekhanov, etc. If the revolutionists-chauvinists were to win power in Russia, we would be against the defenceof their "fatherland" in the present war. Our slogan is-oppose the chau-vinists, even if they be revolutionists and republicans, oppose them anddemand the union of the international proletariat for a Socialist revolution .

But let us return to the English Guchkovite ." . . The Provisional Committee of the Imperial Duma," he continues,

"appreciating the dangers ahead, have purposely refrained from carryingout the original intention of arresting Ministers, although they could havedone so yesterday without the slightest difficulty . The door is thus leftopen for negotiations, thanks to which we" ("we," i. e., English finance capitaland imperialism) "may obtain all the benefits of the new regime withoutpassing through the dread ordeal of the Commune and the anarchy ofcivil war ."The Guchkovites were for civil war for their own benefit ; they

are against civil war for the people's benefit, i. e., for that of theactual majority of toilers .

" . . The relations between the Provisional Committee of the Duma,which represents the whole nation" (this about the committee of the land-owners' and capitalists' Fourth Duma) "and the Council of Workers' Deputies,representing purely class interests" (the language of a diplomat who has heardin passing some learned words and is intent on concealing that the Sovietof Workers' Deputies represents the proletariat and the impoverished masses,i. e., nine-tenths of the population) "but in the crisis like the present wieldingenormous power, have aroused no small misgivings among reasonable menregarding the possibility of a conflict between them-the results of whichmight be too terrible to describe ."

"Happily this danger has been averted, at least for the present" (note this"at least"!) "thanks to the influence of Mr . Kerensky, a young lawyer ofmuch oratorical ability, who clearly realises" (in contradistinction to Chkheidzewho also "realised" but, in the opinion of the Guchkovite, evidently lessclearly?) "the necessity of working with the Committee in the interests of hislabour constituency" (i. e., to flirt with labour in order to pull the labourvote) . "A satisfactory arrangement was concluded to-day" (Wednesday,March 14), "whereby all unnecessary friction will be avoided ."

* A parliamentary group primarily of peasant deputies under the influenceof the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.Ed.

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What the arrangement was, whether it was with the whole Sovietof Workers' Deputies, what its conditions are, we do not know .The most important thing is now passed over in complete silenceby the English Guchkovite . Certainly! It is disadvantageous tothe bourgeoisie to make these conditions clear, precise, and public,-for then it may prove more difficult to violate them!

The foregoing lines had already been written when I chancedupon the following very important news . First, the text of theproclamation issued by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies whereinit promises its "support" to the new government, published bythe ultra-conservative and ultra-bourgeois Paris newspaper Temps(March 20) ; secondly, excerpts from the speech delivered bySkobelev on March 14 before the Imperial Duma, reprinted in oneof the Zurich newspapers (Neue Ziiricher Zeitung, first noon edi-tion, March 21) from a report published in a Berlin newspaper(National-Zeitung) .

The proclamation issued by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, ifthe text has not been distorted by the French imperialists, is a mostremarkable document. It proves that the Petrograd proletariat, atthe time it issued its proclamation, at any rate, was under thepreponderant influence of the petty-bourgeois politicians . You willrecall that I consider gentlemen of the type of Kerensky andChkheidze to be politicians of the above-mentioned type .

In the proclamation we find two political ideas and two cor-responding slogans :

First, the proclamation states that the government (the new one)consists of "moderate elements." A strange characterisation, utterlyinadequate, and of a purely liberal, non-Marxian nature . I, too,am ready to admit that in a certain sense,-just in which sensewill be demonstrated in my next letter,-any government at present,i. e., after the completion of the first stage of the revolution, isbound to be "moderate." But under no circumstances must we con-ceal from ourselves and from the people the fact that this governmentwishes to prolong the imperialist war, that it is the agent of Englishcapital, that it wants to restore the monarchy, and to strengthenthe rule of the landowners and capitalists.

The proclamation declares that every democrat must "support"the new government and that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies re-quests and authorises Kerensky to participate in the Provisional

19

Government. The conditions are as follows : the promised reformsmust be carried out while the war still lasts ; freedom of "cultural"(only cultural?) development of nationalities (a purely Cadet andpoverty-stricken programme) must be guaranteed ; and a specialcommittee for supervising the activities of the Provisional Govern-ment, the committee to consist of members of the Soviet of Workers'Deputies and .of the "military," must be formed.

The Supervising Committee, which really embodies the ideasand slogans of second order, we shall separately discuss later .

As for the appointment of Kerensky, the Russian Louis Blanc,*and the call to support the new government, these steps are a classic,example of betrayal of the cause of the revolution and the cause ofthe proletariat. It was betrayals of precisely the same kind thatdestroyed a number of revolutions of the nineteenth century ir-respective of how much the adherents of such a policy were sincereand devoted to Socialism.

The proletariat cannot and must not support a war government,a government pledged to restore the monarchy . In order to fightagainst reaction, to forestall the possible and probable attempts ofthe Romanovs and their friends to restore the monarchy and togather a counter-revolutionary army, it is necessary not at all tosupport Guchkov, but to organise, develop, and strengthen a pro-letarian militia, to arm the people under the direction of theproletariat. Without this chief, basic, and radical measure, onecannot hope either to offer serious resistance to the restoration ofthe monarchy and to the attempts at taking away or curtailing thepromised liberties, or to take a firm step on the road that leads-to bread, peace, and freedom .

If Chkheidze, who together with Kerensky was a member of the:first Provisional Government (the Duma Committee of thirteen),has not entered the second Provisional Government because of hisloyalty to principles similar to those indicated above, then all honourto him . This should be frankly stated . Unfortunately, such aninterpretation contradicts other facts, and most of all it contradictsthe speech delivered by 'Skobelev who has always worked handin hand with Chkheidze.

If we are to believe the above-named source, Skobelev said thatthe "social (evidently, Social-Democratic?) group and the work-

* A French reformist Socialist who sided with the suppressors of the Paris.Commune.-Ed.

•&9

ers are quite remote from the aims of the Provisional Govern-ment," that the workers demand peace, that, if the war is continued,disaster in the spring is inevitable, that "the workers have enteredinto a temporary truce (eine vorldu fige Waftf en f reundschaf t) withsociety (liberal society), although their political aims are as re-mote from those of society as heaven is from earth," and that the"liberals must renounce their senseless (unsinnige) war aims," etc .This speech is a sample of what we designated above, in our

quotation from the Social-Democrat, as "vacillation" between thebourgeoisie and the proletariat . Liberals, as long as they remainliberals, cannot "renounce" the "senseless" war aims, particularlysince these war aims are not determined by the liberals alone, butby Anglo-French finance capital, a world power measured by hun-dreds of billions. It is not the liberals whom one must "persuade,"but it is the workers to whom one must explain why the liberalsare perplexed, why they are bound hand and foot, why they concealboth the treaties concluded between tsarism and England, etc ., andthe arrangements made between Russian and Anglo-French capital,etc ., etc .

When Skobelev tells us that the workers have entered into somekind of an agreement with the liberal groups, and does not protestagainst it, and does not explain to the workers, from the Duma trib-une, its harmfulness to them, he thereby approves of this agree-ment, and this should not have been done .

Skobelev's direct or indirect, expressed or tacit, approval of theagreement entered into by the Soviet of Workers' Deputies withthe Provisional Government, is a swing to the side of the bourgeoisie .Skobelev's statement that the workers demand peace, that their aimsare as remote from those of the liberals as heaven is from earth, isa swing to the side of the proletariat .

Purely proletarian, truly revolutionary, thoroughly sound in itsconception is the second political idea of the proclamation of theSoviet of Workers' Deputies now under our consideration, namely,the idea of creating a "Supervising Committee" (I do not knowwhether this is the correct name in Russian, it is a free translationfrom the French), namely, the idea of proletarian and soldiersupervision over the actions of the Provisional Government .

That's the thing! This is worthy of workers who have shed theirblood for freedom, for peace, and for bread for the people! Thisis a real step leading toward real guarantees against tsarism, against

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monarchy, as well as against the monarchists Guchkov, Lvov andCo.! This is a sign that the Russian proletariat, regardless ofeverything, has gone ahead in comparison with the French pro-letariat of 1848, which had "invested" Louis Blanc with full power!This is proof that the instinct and the intelligence of the proletarianmasses are not satisfied with declamations, exclamations, promisesof reforms and liberties, are not satisfied with having a "Ministerauthorised by the workers," or with like tinsel show, but thatthey seek support where support really is,-in the armed massesof the population organised and led by the proletariat, the class-conscious workers.

This is a step along the right track, but only the first step .If the "Supervising Committee" remains a purely parliamentary

institution, of a purely political nature, i . e., if it remains a com-mission that will "interrogate" the Provisional Government andreceive answers from it, then it is nothing but a toy, then it doesnot amount to anything.

If, however, it leads toward the creation, immediately and un-failingly, of a really popular, really proletarian militia or workers'armed force, composed of men and women, who will not merely takethe place of the police who have been removed and killed off, butrender impossible the restoration of such a police by any monarchi-cal-constitutional or democratic-republican government, either inPetrograd or anywhere else in Russia,-then the advanced Russianworkers are actually moving toward new and great victories, towardputting an end to the war, toward the actual realisation of theslogan, which, according to the newspapers, was displayed on thebanners of the cavalry regiments in Petrograd when they weredemonstrating on the square in front of the Imperial Duma :

"Long Live the Socialist Republics of All Countries!"My ideas concerning this proletarian militia will be presented

in the next letter.In it I shall try to show, on the one hand, that the creation of

a popular militia under the leadership of the workers is the correctslogan of the day, meeting the tactical requirements of the uniquetransition period which the Russian Revolution (and the worldrevolution) is now going through ; on the other hand, that in orderto insure the success of such a workers' militia, it must, first, be anational, a universal mass militia, embracing the entire able-bodiedpopulation of both sexes ; second, it must proceed to combine not

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only police functions pure and simple, but also general govern-mental functions with military ones, and with control over socialproduction and distribution of products .

N. LENIN.

Zurich, March 22, 1917 .

P.S. I forgot to date the preceding letter as of March 20, 1917 .

First published from manuscript in the Lenin Collection, Vol. II, 1924.

THIRD LETTER

ON PROLETARIAN MILITIA

THE conclusion which I drew yesterday regarding the vacillatingtactics of Chkheidze has been fully confirmed to-day, March 23,by two documents . The first is a despatch from Stockholm to theFrankfurter Zeitung quoting from the manifesto of the CentralCommittee of our party, the R.S.- D.L.P., in Petrograd. This docu-ment contains not a word about either the support of the Guchkovgovernment or its overthrow : the workers and the soldiers arecalled upon to organise around the Soviet of Workers' Deputies,to elect representatives to the Soviet in order to fight againsttsarism, for a republic, for an eight-hour working day, for the con-fiscation of landowners' lands and grain reserves, and chiefly for thetermination of the plunderers' war . Particularly important andparticularly timely is the very correct idea of our C.C. that toobtain peace, relations must be established among the proletarianso f all the warring countries .To hope for peace from the negotiations and communications of

the bourgeois governments would be self-deception as well as de-ception of the people .

The second document is another despatch from Stockholm to an-other German paper (Vossische Zeitung) reporting a joint con-ference of the Chkheidze Duma fraction, the Trudoviks (Arbeiter-f raktion?) and the representatives of fifteen labour unions held onMarch 15, and telling of the proclamation issued on the followingday. Of the eleven points in this proclamation, the telegram quotesonly three : the first, demanding a republic ; the seventh, demandingpeace and the immediate beginning of peace negotiations ; and the

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third, demanding "an adequate representation of the Russian work-ing class in the government."

If this last point is quoted correctly, then I understand why thebourgeoisie lauds Chkheidze, I understand why to the praise bythe English Guchkovites in the Times, which I quoted above, therehas now been added the praise by the French Guchkovites inthe Temps. This organ of French millionaires and imperialistswrites on March 22 : "The leaders of the workers' parties, andespecially Mr. Chkheidze, exert all their influence to temper thedemands of the working classes ."

Indeed, the demand for workers' "participation" in the Guchkov-Miliukov government is a theoretical and political absurdity ; toparticipate as a minority would mean to be a pawn ; to participate"on equal terms" is impossible, for one cannot reconcile the demandto continue the war with the demand to conclude an armistice andopen peace negotiations ; to "participate" as a majority, one musthave power to overthrow the Guchkov-Miliukov government. Inpractice, to demand "participation" is to pursue the worst kind ofLouis Blancism, i. e ., to forget the class struggle and its actualconditions, to be allured by empty, high-sounding phrases, tospread illusions among the workers, to waste, in negotiations withMiliukov and Kerensky, precious time which should be used forcreating an actual class force, a revolutionary force, a proletarianmilitia capable of inspiring confidence in all the poorest strata ofthe population which are an overwhelming majority, and of help-ing them to organise, helping them to fight for bread, for peace, andfor freedom.

This error in the proclamation of Chkheidze and his group (Ido not speak of the party of the O.C., the Organisation Committee,for in the sources at my disposal there is no mention of the O.C.)-this error seems the more strange when we consider that at theconference of March 15, Skobelev, Chkheidze's closest ideologicalally, said, according to the newspapers : "Russia is on the eve of asecond, a real (wirklichen) revolution ."

Now this is a truth from which Skobelev and Chkheidze havefailed to make any practical deductions . I cannot judge fromhere, my accursed exile, how near the second revolution is. Sko-belev, who is there on the spot, can see it better. I therefore donot occupy myself with the questions for the answer to which I haveno concrete data and can have none . I simply emphasise the fact

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that a "stranger," i. e., one who does not belong to our party,Skobelev, confirms the very conclusion that I arrived at in thefirst letter, namely : that the March revolution was only the firststage of the revolution . Russia is going through a unique his-torical period of transition from the first to the next stage of therevolution or, as Skobelev expresses it, to "a second revolution ."

If we want to be Marxists and to learn from the experience ofthe revolutions the world over, we must try to understand justwherein lies the uniqueness of this transition period, and what arethe tactics that follow from its objective peculiarities .

The uniqueness of the situation lies in the fact that the Guchkov-Miliukov government has won the first victory with unusual ease be-cause of the three following main circumstances : 1 . The help receivedfrom Anglo-French finance capital and its agents ; 2. The help re-ceived from the upper layers of the army; 3. The fact that theentire Russian bourgeoisie had been organised in zemstvo and cityinstitutions, in the Imperial Duma, in the war industries commit-tees, etc .

The Guchkov government finds itself between the upper andnether millstones . Bound by capitalist interests, it is compelled tostrive to prolong the predatory war for plunder, to protect themonstrous profits of the capitalists and the landlords, to restorethe monarchy. Bound by its revolutionary origin and the necessityof an abrupt change from tsarism to democracy, finding itself underthe pressure of the hungry masses that clamour for peace, thegovernment is forced to lie, to shift about, to procrastinate, to makeas many "declarations" and promises as possible (promises are theonly things that are very cheap even in an epoch of insanely highprices), and to carry out as few of them as possible, to make con-cessions with one hand, and to withdraw them with the other .

Under certain conditions, if circumstances are most favourable toit, the new government, relying on the organising abilities of theentire Russian bourgeoisie and the bourgeois intelligentsia, maytemporarily avert the final crash . But even under such conditionsit cannot escape the crash altogether, for it is impossible to escapethe claws of that terrible monster, begotten by world-capitalism-the imperialist war and famine,-without abandoning the wholebasis of bourgeois relations, without resorting to revolutionarymeasures, without appealing to the greatest historical heroism ofthe Russian and the world proletariat .

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Hence the conclusion : We shall not be able to overthrow the newgovernment with one stroke or, should we be able to do so (inrevolutionary times the limits of the possible are increased a thou-sandfold), we could not retain power, unless we met the splendidorganisation of the entire Russian bourgeoisie and the entire bour-geois intelligentsia with an organisation of the proletariat just assplendid, leading the vast mass of the city and country poor, thesemi-proletarians and the petty proprietors .

It matters little whether the "second revolution" has alreadybroken out in Petrograd (I have stated that it would be absurd toattempt to estimate from abroad the actual tempo of its growth),whether it has been postponed for a time, or whether it has begun inisolated localities in Russia (there are some indications that thisis the case)-in any case the slogan of the hour right now, on theeve of the revolution, during the revolution, and on the day afterthe revolution, must be-proletarian organisation .

Comrade-workers! Yesterday you displayed wonders of prole-tarian heroism when you overthrew the tsarist monarchy . Sooner orlater (perhaps even now, while I am writing these lines) you willinevitably be called upon again to display wonders of similarheroism in overthrowing the power of the landowners and the capi-talists who are waging the imperialist war. But you will not beable to win a permanent victory in this forthcoming "true" revolu-tion, unless you display wonders o f proletarian organisation!

The slogan of the hour is organisation . But organisation in itselfdoes not mean much, because, on the one hand, organisation isalways necessary, and, hence, the mere insistence on "the organisa-tion of the masses" does not yet clarify anything, and because, onthe other hand, he who contents himself with organisation only ismerely echoing the views of the liberals ; for the liberals, tostrengthen their rule, desire nothing better than to have the workersrefuse to go beyond the usual "legal" forms of organisation (fromthe point of view -of "normal" bourgeois society), i . e ., to havethem merely become members of their party, their trade union, theirco-operative society, etc ., etc .

The workers, guided by their class instinct, have realised that inrevolutionary times they need an entirely different organisation, ofa type above the ordinary . They have taken the right attitude sug-gested by the experience of our revolution of 1905 and by the ParisCommune of 1871 : they have created a Soviet of workers' Deputies,

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they have set out to develop it, widen and strengthen it, by attract-ing to it representatives of the soldiers and no doubt of the hiredagricultural workers, as well as (in one form or another) of theentire poor section of the peasantry .

To create similar organisations in all the localities of Russiawithout exception, for all the trades and layers of the proletarianand semi-proletarian population without exception, i . e., for all thetoilers and the exploited (to use an expression that is less exactfrom the point of view of economics but more popular), is our mostimportant and most urgent task . I will note right here that to thepeasant masses our party (whose specific role in the proletarianorganisations of the new type I shall have occasion to discuss inone of the forthcoming letters) must recommend with specialemphasis the organisation of Soviets of hired workers and pettyagriculturists, such as do not sell their grain, those Soviets to haveno connection with the prosperous peasants,-otherwise it will beimpossible to pursue a true proletarian policy, in a general sense,*nor will it be possible correctly to approach the most importantpractical question involving the life and death of millions of people,i. e., the question of an equitable assessment of food deliveries, ofincreasing its production, etc .

The question, then, is : What is to be the work of the Soviets ofWorkers' Deputies? We repeat what we once said in No . 47 ofthe Geneva Social-Democrat (October 13, 1915) : "They must beregarded as organs of insurrection, as organs of revolutionarypower."

This theoretical formula, derived from the experience of theCommune of 1871 and of the Russian Revolution of 1905, must beelucidated and concretely developed on the basis of the practicalexperience gained at this very stage of this very revolution in Russia .

We need revolutionary power, we need (for a certain period oftransition) the state. Therein we differ from the Anarchists . Thedifference between revolutionary Marxists and Anarchists lies notonly in the fact that the former stand for huge, centralised, com-munist production, while the latter are for decentralised, small-scaleproduction. No, the difference as to government authority and the

* There will now develop in the village a struggle for the petty, and partlythe middle, peasantry. The landowners, basing themselves on the well-to-dopeasants, will lead them to submission to the bourgeoisie . We, basing our-selves on the hired agricultural workers and poor peasants, must lead themto the closest possible alliance with the proletariat of the cities.

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state consists in this, that we stand for the revolutionary utilisationof revolutionary forms of the state in our struggle for Socialism,while the Anarchists are against it .

We need the state . But we need none of those types of statevarying from a constitutional monarchy to the most democraticrepublic which the bourgeoisie has established everywhere . Andherein lies the difference between us and the opportunists and Kaut-skians of the old, decaying Socialist parties who have distorted orforgotten the lessons of the Paris Commune and the analysis of theselessons by Marx and Engels .*

We need the state, but not the kind needed by the bourgeoisie,with organs of power in the form of police, army, bureaucracy,distinct from and opposed to the people. All bourgeois revolutionshave merely perfected this government apparatus, have merelytransferred it from one party to another .

The proletariat, however, if it wants to preserve the gains ofthe present revolution and to proceed further to win peace, bread,and freedom, must "destroy," to use Marx's word, this "ready-made" state machinery, and must replace it by another one, mergingthe police, the army, and the bureaucracy with the universallyarmed people. Advancing along the road indicated by the experi-ence of the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of1905, the proletariat must organise and arm all the poorest andmost exploited sections of the population, so that they themselvesmay take into their own hands all the organs of state power, thatthey themselves may constitute these organs .

The workers of Russia have already, with the very first stageof the first revolution, March, 1917, entered on this course. Thewhole problem now is to understand clearly the nature of this newcourse and courageously, firmly, and persistently, to continue on it .

The Anglo-French and the Russian capitalists wanted "only" todisplace, or merely to "scare," Nicholas II, leaving the old ma-chinery of the state-the police, the army, the bureaucracy-intact .

The workers have gone further ; they have smashed it . And nownot only the Anglo-French, but even the German capitalists howl with

*In one of the forthcoming letters or in a special article I shall dwellin detail on this analysis as given particularly in Marx's Civil War in France,in Engels' preface to the third edition of that work, in Marx's letter datedApril 12, 1871, and in Engel's letters of March 18-28, 1875, also on thecomplete distortion of Marxism by Kautsky in his 1912 polemics againstPannekoek relative to the so-called "destruction of the state."

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rage and horror when they see Russian soldiers shooting theirofficers, some of whom were even supporters of Guchkov and Miliu-kov, as Admiral Nepenin, for example .

I have said that the workers have smashed the old state ma-chinery. To be more precise . They have begun to smash it .

Let us take a concrete example .The police of Petrograd and many other places have been partly

killed off, and partly removed. The Guchkov-Miliukov governmentwill not be able to restore the monarchy, nor even to retain power,unless it re-establishes the police as an organisation of armed menseparated from and opposed to the people and under the commandof the bourgeoisie. This is as clear as the clearest day.

On the other hand, the new government must reckon with therevolutionary masses, must humour them with half-concessions andpromises, trying to gain time. Hence it agrees to half-measures : itinstitutes a "people's militia" with elected officers (this sounds ter-ribly imposing, terribly democratic, revolutionary, and beautiful!) .But . . . but . . . first of all, it places the militia under the con-trol of the local zemstvo and city organs of self-government, i. e .,under the control of landowners and capitalists elected under thelaws of Nicholas the Bloody and Stolypin the Hangman! ! Secondly,though it calls it the "people's" militia to throw dust into the eyesof the "people," it does not, as a matter of fact call the people foruniversal service in this militia, nor does it compel the bosses andthe capitalists to pay their employees the usual wage for the hoursand the days they devote to public service, i. e ., to the militia.

There is where the main trick is. That is how the landownerand capitalist government of the Guchkovs and Miliukovs achievesits aim of keeping the "people's militia" on paper, while in realityit is quietly and step by step organising a bourgeois militia hostileto the people, first of "8,000 students and professors" (as the for-eign press describes the present militia in Petrograd) -which isobviously a mere toy!-then, gradually, of the old and the newpolice .

Do not permit the re-establishment of the police! Do not let gothe local government organs! Create a really universal militia, ledby the proletariat! This is the task of the day, this is the sloganof the present hour, equally in accord with the correctly under-stood requirements of the further development of the class struggle,the further course of the revolution, and with the democratic

29

instinct of every worker, every peasant, every toiler, every one whois exploited, who cannot but hate the police, the constables, thecommand of landowners and capitalists over armed men who wieldpower over the people .

What kind of police do they need, these Guchkovs and Miliukovs,these landowners and capitalists? The same kind that existed dur-ing the tsarist monarchy . Following very brief revolutionaryperiods, all the bourgeois and bourgeois-democratic republics ofthe world organised or re-established precisely that kind of police,-a special organisation of armed men, separated from and opposed tothe people, and in one way or another subordinated to the bour-geoisie.

What kind of militia do we need, we, the proletariat, all thetoilers? A real people's militia, i . e., first of all, one that consistsof the entire population, of all the adult citizens of both sexes ;secondly, one that combines the functions of a people's army withthose of the police, and with the functions of the main and funda-mental organ of the state system and the state administration .

To give more concreteness to these propositions, let us try aschematic example. Needless to say, the idea of laying out any"plan" for a proletarian militia would be absurd : when the work-ers, and all the people as a real mass, take up this task in a prac-tical way, they will work it out and secure it a hundred timesbetter than any theoretician can propose . I am not offering a plan-allI want is to illustrate my thought .

Petrograd has a population of about two million, more than halfof which is between the ages of 15 and 65 . Let us take a half-one million. Let us deduct one-fourth to allow for the sick orother instances where people cannot be engaged in public servicefor a valid reason. There still remain 750,000 persons, who, work-ing in the militia one day out of every fifteen (and continuing toreceive payment from their employers for this time), would make upan army of 50,000 people .

This is the type of "state" that we need!This is the kind of militia that would be, in deed, and not only

in name, a "people's militia ."This is the road we must follow if we wish to make impossible

the re-establishment of a special police, or a special army, separatedfrom the people.

Such a militia would, in ninety-five cases out of a hundred, be30

overwhelming majority of the people . Such a militia would actuallyarm and give military training to the people at large, thus makingsure, in a manner not employed by Guchkov, nor Miliukov, againstall attempts to re-establish reaction, against all efforts of the tsaristagents. Such a militia would be the executive organ of the "Sovietsof Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies," it would enjoy the full respectand confidence of the population, because it would, itself, be anorganisation of the entire population . Such a militia would changedemocracy from a pretty signboard, hiding the enslavement anddeception of the people by the capitalists, into a real means foreducating the masses so that they might be able to take part in allthe affairs of the state. Such a militia would draw the youngstersinto political life, training them not only by word, but by deed andwork . Such a militia would develop those functions which belong,to use learned terms, to the welfare police, sanitary supervision, etc .,by drawing into such activities all the adult women without excep-tion . Without drawing the women into social service, into themilitia, into political life, without tearing the women away fromthe stupefying domestic and kitchen atmosphere it is impossible tosecure real freedom, it is impossible to build a democrcay, let aloneSocialism.

Such a militia would be a proletarian militia, because the in-dustrial and the city workers would just as naturally and inevitablyassume in it the leadership of the masses of the poor, as naturallyand inevitably as they took the leading . position in all the revolu-tionary struggles of the people in the years 1905-1907, and in1917 .

Such a militia would guarantee absolute order and a comradelydiscipline practiced with enthusiasm. At the same time, it wouldafford a means of struggling in a real democratic manner againstthe crisis through which all the warring nations are now passing ;it would make possible the regular and prompt assessment of foodand other supply levies, the establishment of "universal labourduty" which the French now call "civil mobilisation" and the Ger-mans--•"obligatory civil service," and without which, as has beendemonstrated, it is impossible to heal the wounds that were andare being inflicted by this predatory and horrible war .

Has the proletariat of Russia shed its blood only to receive31

luxurious promises of mere political democratic reforms? Will itnot demand and make sure that every toiler should see and feel acertain improvement in his life right now? That every familyshould have sufficient bread? That every child should have a bottleof good milk, and that no adult in a rich family should dare takeextra milk until all the children are supplied? That the palacesand luxurious homes left by the Tsar and the aristocracy shouldnot stand idle but should provide shelter to the homeless and thedestitute? What other organisation except a universal people'smilitia with women participating on a par with the men can effectthese measures?

Such measures do not yet constitute Socialism . They deal withdistribution of consumption, not with the reorganisation of indus-try. They do not yet constitute the "dictatorship of the proletariat,"but merely a "revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the pro-letariat and the poorest peasantry ." Theoretical classification doesn'tmatter now. It would indeed be a grave error if we tried now tofit the complex, urgent, rapidly unfolding practical tasks of therevolution into the Procrustean bed of a narrowly conceived"theory," instead of regarding theory first of all and above all asa guide to action .

Will the mass of Russian workers have sufficient class-conscious-ness, self-discipline and heroism to show "wonders of proletarianorganisation" after they have displayed wonders of courage, initiativeand self-sacrifice in direct revolutionary struggle? This we do notknow, and to make conjectures about it would be idle, for suchquestions are answered only by life itself .

What we do know definitely and what we must as a party explainto the masses is that we have on hand an historic motive powerof tremendous force that causes an unheard-of crisis, hunger andcountless miseries. This motive power is the war which the capi-talists of both warring camps are waging for predatory purposes.This "motive power" has brought a number of the richest, freest,and most enlightened nations to the brink of an abyss. It forcesnations to strain all their strength to the breaking point, it placesthem in an insufferable position, it makes imperative the puttinginto effect not of "theories" (that is out of the question, and Marxhad repeatedly warned Socialists against this illusion), but of mostextreme yet practical measures, because without these extreme

32

measures there is death, immediate and indubitable death for millions,of people through hunger .

That revolutionary enthusiasm on the part of the most advanced'class can accomplish much when objective conditions demand ex-treme measures from the entire people, need not be argued. This.aspect of the case is clearly seen and felt by every one in Russia .

It is important to understand that in revolutionary times the.objective situation changes as rapidly and as suddenly as life itself .We should be able to adjust our tactics and our immediate objec-tives to the peculiarities of every given situation . Up to March,1917, our task was to conduct a bold revolutionary-internationalistpropaganda, to awaken and call the masses to struggle. In theMarch days there was required the courage of heroic struggle to-crush tsarism-the most immediate foe . We are now going through.a transition from the first stage of the revolution to the second,from a "grapple" with tsarism to a "grapple" with the imperialism.of Guchkov-Miliukov, of the capitalists and the landowners . Ourimmediate problem is organisation, not in the sense of effecting.ordinary organisation by ordinary methods, but in the sense of.drawing large masses of the oppressed classes in unheard-of num-bers into the organisation, and of embodying in this organisationmilitary, state, and national economic problems .

The proletariat has approached this unique task and will ap-proach it in a variety of ways . In some localities of Russia theMarch revolution has given the proletariat almost full power,-in.others, the proletariat will begin to build up and strengthen theproletarian militia perhaps by "usurpation" ;-in still others, itwill, probably, work for immediate elections, on the basis of uni-

versal suffrage, to the city councils and zemstvos, in order to turnthem into revolutionary centres, etc ., until the growth of proletarianorganisation, the rapprochement of soldiers and workers, the stir-ring within the peasantry, the disillusionment of very many aboutthe competence of the militarist-imperialist government of Guchkovand Miliukov shall have brought nearer the hour when that govern-ment will give place to the "government" of the Soviets of Workers'Deputies .

Nor must we forget that right near Petrograd there is one of themost advanced, actually republican, countries-Finland,-a countrywhich from 1905 up to 1917, shielded by the revolutionary struggles.in Russia, has deve1 ped a democracy by comparatively peaceful

88

means, and has won the majority of its population over to Socialism .The Russian proletariat will insure the freedom of the Finnishrepublic, even to the point of separation (there is hardly a Social-Democrat who would hesitate on this score now, when the CadetRodichev is so shamefully haggling in Helsingfors over bits ofprivileges for the Great Russians), and thus gain the full confidenceand comradely aid of the Finnish workers for the all-Russian pro-letarian cause . In a difficult and great cause errors are unavoidable,nor shall we avoid them ; the Finnish workers are better organisers,they will help us in this and, in their own way, bring nearer theestablishment of a Socialist republic .

Revolutionary victories in Russia itself,-quiet organisational suc-cesses in Finland shielded by the above victories,-the Russianworkers taking up revolutionary-organisational tasks on a newscale,-conquest of power by the proletariat and the poorest strataof the population,-encouraging and developing the Socialist revo-lution in the West,-this is the path that will lead us to peace andSocialism .

N. LENIN.

Zurich, March 24, 1917 .First published from manuscript in the Lenin Collection, Vol. II, 1924.

FOURTH LETTER

HOW TO GET PEACE

I HAVE just read (March 25) the following despatch sent to theNeue Ziiricher Zeitung (No . 517, March 24) from Berlin :

"It is reported from Sweden that Maxim Gorki has sent both tothe government, and to the Executive Committee [of the Soviet] anenthusiastically written greeting . He hails the victory of the peopleover the masters of reaction and calls upon all sons of Russia tohelp build the new Russian state edifice . At the same time he callsupon the government to crown its work of liberation with the con-clusion of peace . It must not be peace at any price, he says ; at thepresent moment Russia has less cause to strive for peace at anyprice than she has had at any other time. It must be a peace, he

:says, that would enable Russia to live honourably before the eyesof all the other peoples of the earth . Humanity has bled enough ;

34

the new government would perform the greatest service to Russiaas well as to the rest of humanity, if it suceeded in bringing aboutan early peace."

Thus reads the report of Gorki's letter .One feels embittered on reading this letter which is permeated with

ordinary philistine prejudices . The present writer on many occa-sions, in meetings with Gorki on the Island of Capri, warned himand reproached him for his political errors . Gorki parried thesereproaches with his inimitably sweet smile and the candid admis-sion : "I know that I am a bad Marxist. Moreover, all of usartists are a bit irresponsible." It is not easy to argue against that .

Gorki has, no doubt, great artistic talent that has been and willbe of great use to the proletarian movement of the world.

But why should Gorki dabble in politics?In my opinion Gorki's letter voices preconceived ideas that are

exceedingly widespread not only among the petty bourgeoisie, butalso among a section of the workers under the influence of thatbourgeoisie . The entire strength of our party, every effort of theclass-conscious workers, must be directed toward a stubborn, per-sistent, and many-sided fight against these false ideas .

The tsarist government began and waged the present war as apredatory, imperialist war for spoliation, to rob and crush theweak nations . The government of the Guchkovs and Miliukovs,which is a landowners' and capitalists' government, is forced tocontinue and wants to continue the very same kind of a war . Tocome to that government with the suggestion that it should concludea democratic peace is equivalent to approaching proprietors ofhouses of ill fame with a sermon on virtue .Let us explain what we mean .What is imperialism?In my pamphlet, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,

which, before the revolution, had been submitted to the publishingfirm "Parus," [Sail], accepted by it and announced in the magazineLietopis [Annals], I have answered this question in the followingway :

"Imperialism is capitalism in that phase of its development inwhich the domination of monopolies and finance capital has estab-lished itself ; in which the export of capital has acquired very greatimportance ; in which the division of the world among interna-tional trusts has begun ; in which the partition of all the territories

35

of the earth among the greatest capitalist countries has been com-pleted." (Chapter VII of the above-named pamphlet, announcedin the Lietopis, when there was still a censorship, under the title :V. Ilyin,* Recent Capitalism .)

The whole thing reduces itself to the fact that capital has grownto enormous dimensions . Associations of a small number of thegreatest capitalists (cartels, syndicates, trusts) manipulate billionsand divide the whole world among themselves. The earth hasbeen completely divided . The war has been brought on by theclash of two mighty groups of billionaires, the Anglo-French andthe German, over the redivision of the world .

The Anglo-French group of capitalists wishes first of all to robGermany by taking away its colonies (almost all of them havealready been taken away)-then to rob Turkey .

The German group of capitalists wishes to grab Turkey for itselfand to compensate itself for the loss of the colonies by seizing theneighbouring small states (Belgium, Serbia, Rumania) .

This is the real truth, concealed under various bourgeois liessuch as "war for liberation," "national" war, a "war for right andjustice" and similar toy-rattles with which the capitalists alwaysfool the common people .

Russia is fighting this war not with its own money . Russiancapital is the partner of Anglo-French capital . Russia is fightingthis war in order that it may rob Armenia, Turkey, Galicia .

Guchkov, Lvov, Miliukov, our present Ministers, are not leadersby accident . They are the representatives and leaders of the entireclass of landowners and capitalists. They are bound by the interestsof capital . Capitalists are as incapable of sacrificing their interestsas man is incapable of lifting himself by his own bootstraps .

Secondly, Guchkov, Miliukov and Co . are bound by Anglo-Frenchcapital. They have been and still are conducting the war on bor-rowed money. They have promised to pay on the borrowed billionsinterest amounting to hundreds of millions yearly, to squeeze thistribute out of the Russian workers and the Russian peasants .

Thirdly, Guchkov, Miliukov and Co . are bound to England,France, Italy, Japan, and other groups of capitalist-robbers bydirect treaties dealing with the predatory aims of the war . Thesetreaties were concluded by Tsar Nicholas II . Guchkov, Miliukovand Co., taking advantage of the struggle of the workers against

* One of Lenin's pen names.-Ed.36

the tsarist monarchy, seized power, but they have confirmed thetreaties concluded by the Tsar .

This was done by the entire Guchkov-Miliukov government in aManifesto which the Petrograd Telegraph Agency reported abroadon March 20 : "The government" (of Guchkov and Miliukov), saysthe Manifesto, "aims to live up faithfully to all its treaty obliga-tions to other countries." The new Minister of Foreign Affairs,Miliukov, made a similar declaration in his telegram to all therepresentatives of Russia abroad (March 18, 1917) .

These treaties are all secret, and Miliukov and Co . do not wishto publish them for two reasons : (1) They are afraid of the people,which does not want any predatory war. (2) They are boundby Anglo-French capital, which demands that the treaties remainsecret . But any one who has read newspapers and who has studiedthe subject knows that these treaties deal with the looting of Chinaby Japan ; of Persia, Armenia, Turkey (Constantinople in par-ticular), and Galica, by Russia; of Albania, by Italy ; of Turkey,the German colonies, etc ., by France and England.

That is how things stand.That is why there is just as much sense in asking the Guchkov-

Miliukov government speedily to conclude an honest, democratic,neighbourly peace as there is in the appeal of the kindly villagepriest to the landlords and merchants to live a godly life, to lovetheir neighbours, and to turn the right cheek when one strikesthem on the left. The landowners and the merchants listen to thesermon, continue to oppress and rob the people and extol thepriest's ability to console and pacify the peasants .

Precisely the same role-whether they realise it or not-is playedby all those who in the present imperialist war come to the bour-geois governments with kindly proposals of peace . The bourgeoisgovernments at times refuse to listen to such proposals and evenprohibit them altogether, but sometimes countenance them andissue assurances right and left that what they are really fighting foris the speedy conclusion of a "most righteous" peace, and that theonly one at fault is the enemy. All such proposals of peace andappeals to bourgeois governments turn out in fact to be a hoaxupon the people .

The groups of capitalists who have drenched the earth in bloodover the partition of territories, markets, and concessions, cannotconclude an "honourable" peace . They can conclude only a

37

dishonourable peace, a peace based on the division of spoils, on thepartition of Turkey and the colonies .Moreover, the Guchkov-Miliukov government is altogether op-

posed to peace at the present moment, for now its share of thespoils would include only Armenia and a part of Galicia, whereasits real aim is to seize Constantinople, and to regain from theGermans Poland, a country that was always inhumanly and dis-gracefully oppressed by tsarism . Furthermore, the Guchkov-Miliu-kov government is essentially the errand boy of Anglo-Frenchcapital that wants to retain the colonies wrested from Germany andalso to compel Germany to hand back Belgium and a part ofFrance. Anglo-French capital has helped the Guchkovs andthe Miliukovs to remove Nicholas II, in order that the Guchkovs andthe Miliukovs might help it to "vanquish" Germany .

What then is to be done?In order to obtain peace (and particularly, to obtain a really

democratic, a really honourable peace), it is necessary that thepower of the state should be in the hands not of the landlords andthe capitalists, but in the hands of the workers and the poorestpeasants. The landlords and the capitalists constitute an insignifi-cant minority of the population ; the capitalists, as every one knows,are making enormous profits out of the war .The workers and the poorest peasants constitute an overwhelm-

ing majority of the population . Far from enriching themselvesout of the war, they are actually being ruined and starved . Theyare bound neither by capital nor by treaties with predatory capi-talist gangs ; they are in a position and sincerely wish to bringthe war to an end.

Were the state power in Russia to belong to the Soviets of Work-ers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, these Soviets and the All-Russian Soviet elected by them could and certainly would agreeto put into effect the peace programme which our party (RussianSocial-Democratic Labour Party), had outlined as far back asOctober 13, 1915, and printed in No . 47 of Social-Democrat, theCentral Organ of our party (published then in Geneva on accountof the oppressive tsarist censorship) .This peace programme would probably be as follows :1. The All-Russian Soviet of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants'

Deputies (or the Petrograd Soviet which temporarily takes itsplace) would immediately declare that it was not bound by any

38

treaties concluded either by the tsarist monarchy or by the bourgeoisgovernments .2. It would forthwith publish all these treaties in order to expose

to public obloquy the predatory aims of the tsarist monarchy and ofall bourgeois governments, without exception .3. It would immediately and openly propose to all the warring

nations that an armistice be concluded forthwith .4. It would immediately publish, so that every one might know,

our, the workers' and the peasants', conditions for peace : the libera-tion of all colonies ; the liberation of all dependent, oppressed, andnon-sovereign peoples .

5. It would declare that it expected no good to come from thebourgeois governments and that it proposed to the workers of allthe countries to overthrow them and to transfer all the state powerto Soviets of Workers' Deputies .

6. It would declare that the billion-ruble debts contracted bythe bourgeois governments for the purpose of carrying on thiscriminal and predatory war should be paid by the capitalists them-selves, and that the workers and peasants refused to recognisethese debts. To pay interest on these debts would mean to paytribute to the capitalists for many, many years for having generouslypermitted the workers to kill one another over the division ofspoils by the capitalists .The Soviet of Workers' Deputies would say : Workers and peas-

ants! Are you willing to pay hundreds of millions of rubles yearlyto compensate the capitalists for a war that has been waged forthe purpose of partitioning the African colonies, Turkey, etc .?

For the enforcement of such conditions of peace the Soviet ofWorkers' Deputies, in my opinion, would agree to wage war againstany bourgeois government and against all bourgeois governmentsof -the world, because a war in that case would be a really justwar and all the workers and toilers of all countries would workfor its success.

The German worker sees now that the militarist monarchy inRussia is being replaced by a militarist republic, a republic ofcapitalists who wish to continue the imperialist war, who sanctionthe predatory treaties of the tsarist monarchy .

Judge for yourselves, can the German worker trust such a re-public?

39

Judge for yourselves, can the war continue, can the dominationof capitalists in the world continue, if the Russian people, alwayssustained by the living memories of the great revolution of 1905,wins complete freedom and places the entire state power in the'hands of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies?

Zurich, March 25, 1917.First published from manuscript in the Lenin Collection, Vol. II, 1924.

FIFTH LETTER

PROBLEMS OF REVOLUTIONARY PROLETARIAN ORGANISATIONOF THE STATE

IN the foregoing letters the tasks of the revolutionary proletariatof Russia have been outlined as follows : (1) To find the surestroad leading to the next stage of the revolution or to the secondrevolution, which revolution (2) shall transfer the state powerfrom the government of landowners and capitalists (the Guchkovs,Lvovs, Miliukovs, Kerenskys) to a government of the workers andpoorest peasants. (3) The latter government must be organisedon the model of the Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies,namely (4), it must shatter and completely eliminate the old;government apparatus prevailing in all the bourgeois countries, thearmy, the police, the bureaucracy, putting in its place (5) notonly a mass organisation but an organisation of a universally armedpeople. (6) Only such a government, with "such" a class composi-tion (revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat andthe peasantry) and such administrative organs (proletarian militia)will be able to solve successfully the exceedingly difficult, urgent,and most important problem of the moment, i . e., the problem ofobtaining peace, not an imperialist peace, not agreements amongimperialist governments concerning the division of spoils by thecapitalists and their governments, but a true, permanent, demo-cratic peace which cannot be attained without a proletarian revolu-tion in a number of countries . (7) In Russia the victory of theproletariat can be accomplished in the nearest future only if theworkers are at the very outset supported by an overwhelmingmajority of the peasantry in its fight for the confiscation of all thelands owned by the landowners, and for the nationalisation of the

40

entire land, if we assume that the agrarian programme of the"104" * is still essentially the agrarian programme of the peas-antry. (8) In connection with and on the basis of such a peasantrevolution further steps of the proletariat in union with the poorestsection of the peasantry are possible and necessary, steps directedtowards the control of industry and the distribution of basicproducts, towards the establishment of "universal labour duty," etc.These steps are absolutely and imperatively demanded by the con-ditions created by the war, conditions which are likely to becomeeven more aggravated in post-war times ; in their entirety and intheir development, these steps would represent the transition toSocialism, which in Russia cannot be realised immediately, directly,without transition measures, which, however, is perfectly realisableand urgently needed as a result of such transition measures . (9)The task of immediately organising in the villages separate Sovietsof Workers' Deputies, i. e., Soviets of hired agricultural workers,distinct from the Soviets of the rest of the peasant deputies, appearsto be most urgent.

This, in short, is the programme we outlined, after taking stockof the class forces of the Russian and the world revolutions, aswell as of the experience of 1871 and 1905 .

Let us now attempt a general view of this programme as a whole,considering at the same time the manner in which it was approachedby K. Kautsky, the greatest theoretician of the "Second" Interna-tional (1889-1914) and the most conspicuous representative ofthe "centre" or the "swamp" group observable in all the countries,i. e., the group that vacillates between the social-chauvinists andthe revolutionary internationalists. Kautsky discussed this subjectin his journal (Die Neue Zeit, April 6, 1917) in an article entitled,"The Prospects of the Russian Revolution ."

"First of all," says Kautsky, "we must make clear to ourselvesthe problems confronting the revolutionary proletarian regime."

"Two things," continues the author, "are absolutely necessary tothe proletariat : democracy and Socialism."

Unfortunately, this absolutely incontestable premise is pro-pounded by Kautsky in an extremely generalised form, so that itreally offers nothing and clarifies nothing . Miliukov and Kerensky,

* The programme for the nationalisation of the land presented in the SecondDuma by 104 peasant deputies.Ed.

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members of the bourgeois and imperialist government, would readilysubscribe to this general premise, the one to the former, the otherto the latter part . . . .*

Written April 8, 1917.First published from manuscript in the Lenin Collection, Vol. II, 1924.

FAREWELL LETTER TO THE SWISS WORKERS

COMRADES, SWISS WORKERS :Leaving Switzerland for Russia, in order to continue the revolu-

tionary-internationalist work in our country, we, members of theRussian Social-Democratic Labour Party united under the Cen-tral Committee (in distinction from another party bearing the samename but united under the Organisation Committee), wish to con-vey to you our fraternal greetings and expression of our profoundcomradely gratitude for your comradely attitude to the politicalemigrants.

If the avowed social-patriots and opportunists, the Swiss Gruetli-ans who, like the social-patriots of all countries, have deserted thecamp of the proletariat for the camp of the bourgeoisie ; if thesepeople have openly called upon you to fight against the harmfulinfluence of foreigners upon the Swiss labour movement ; if the dis-guised social-patriots and opportunists who constitute a majorityamong the leaders of the Swiss Socialist Party have been pursuingsimilar tactics under cover, we think it necessary to declare that onthe part of the revolutionary Socialist workers of Switzerland hold-ing internationalist views we have met with warm sympathy, andhave derived a great deal of benefit from our comradely relationswith them .

We have always been particularly careful in dealing with thosequestions of the Swiss movement, acquaintance with which requiresprolonged participation in the local movement . But those of uswho have been members of the Swiss Socialist Party, the numberhardly exceeding from ten to fifteen, have regarded it as our dutysteadfastly to maintain our point of view, i . e., the point of viewof the "Zimmerwald Left," on general and fundamental questionspertaining to the international and Socialist movement, to fight

* Manuscript unfinished.Ed.42

determinedly not only social-patriotism, but also the line of theso-called "centre" to which belong R. Grimm, F. Schneider, JacquesSchmidt, and others in Switzerland, Kautsky, Haase, and the Arbeits-gemeinsclaaft in Germany, Longuet, Pressemane, and others inFrance, Snowden, Ramsay MacDonald, and others in England,Turati, Treves, and their friends in Italy, and the above-mentionedparty headed by the Organisation Committee (Axelrod, Martov,Chkheidze, Skobelev, and others) in Russia .

We have worked hand in hand with those revolutionary Social-Democrats of Switzerland who were grouped about the magazine,Freie Jugend ; who formulated and circulated (in the German andFrench languages) the proposals for the holding of a referendumregarding a party conference in April, 1917, to take up the questionof the party's attitude to the war ; who at the convention of theZurich Canton in Toss introduced the resolution of the young andthe "Lefts" dealing with the question of war ; who in March, 1917,issued and circulated in certain localities of French Switzerland aleaflet in the German and French languages entitled, "Our Condi-tions of Peace," etc .

We are sending our fraternal greetings to these comrades, withwhom we have been working together, in agreement.

We have not, and we never had, the slightest doubt that the im-perialist government of England will under no circumstances permitthe return to Russia of Russian internationalists, who are irrevoca-bly against the imperialist government of Guchkov-Miliukov andCo., and irrevocably against the continuation of the imperialist warby Russia.

In connection with this we must say a few words about ourunderstanding of the tasks of the Russian Revolution . We deemthis all the more necessary because through the Swiss workers wecan and must address ourselves to the German, French, and Italianworkers, who speak the same languages as the population of Switzer-land that still enjoys the advantages of peace and the relativelygreatest political freedom .

We remain unconditionally loyal to the declaration which wemade in the central organ of our party, No . 47 of the Social-Democrat (October 13, 1915), published in Geneva . We statedthere that should the revolution prove victorious in Russia, andshould a republican government, a government intent on continu-ing the imperialist war, a war in league with the imperialist bour-

43

geoisie of England and France, a war for the purpose of seizingConstantinople, Armenia, Galicia, etc ., etc ., find itself in power, thatwe would be most resolutely opposed to such a government, that wewould be against the "defence of the fatherland" in such a war .

A contingency approaching the above has now arisen . The newgovernment of Russia, which has conducted negotiations with thebrother of Nicholas II with regard to the restoration of the mon-archy in Russia, and in which the most important and influentialposts have been given to the monarchists Lvov and Guchkov, thisgovernment is trying to deceive the workers by the slogan, "the Ger-mans must overthrow Wilhelm" (correct, but why not add : theEnglish, the Italians, etc ., must do the same to their own kings ; andthe Russians must remove their monarchists Lvov and Guchkov?) .This government, by using the above slogan, while refusing to pub-lish the imperialist, predatory treaties concluded by the Tsar withFrance, England, etc ., and confirmed by the government of Guchkov-Miliukov-Kerensky, is trying to represent its imperialist war withGermany as a war of "defence" (i. e., as a just war, legitimate evenfrom the point of view of the proletariat)-is trying to represent awar for the defence of the bloodthirsty, imperialist, predatory aimsof capital-Russian, English, etc .-as the "defence" of the republic(which does not yet exist in Russia, and which the Lvovs and theGuchkovs have not even promised to establish) .

If there is truth in the latest telegraphic reports that the avowedRussian social-patriots (such as Plekhanov, Zasulich, Potresov, etc .)have entered into something like a rapprochement with the party ofthe "centre," the party of the "Organisation Committee," the partyof Chkheidze, Skobelev, etc ., on the basis of a common slogan :"While the Germans do not overthrow Wilhelm, our war remainsa defensive war,"-if this is true, then we shall redouble our energyin carrying on the struggle against the party of Chkheidze, Skobelev,etc., which we have always waged against that party for its oppor-tunist, vacillating, unstable political behaviour .Our slogan is : No support to the government of Guchkov-Miliu-

kov! He who says that such support is necessary in order to fightagainst the restoration of the monarchy deceives the people . Onthe contrary, it is this very government of Guchkov that has alreadyconducted negotiations concerning the restoration of the monarchyin Russia. Only the arming of the proletariat can prevent Guchkovand Co. from restoring monarchy in Russia . Only the proletariat of

44

Russia and the rest of Europe, remaining loyal to internationalism,is capable of ridding humanity of the horrors of the imperialist war .

We do not close our eyes to the tremendous difficulties facing therevolutionary-internationalist vanguard of the Russian proletariat .In these times most sudden and swift changes are possible . In No .47 of the Social-Democrat we gave a clear and direct answer to thequestion that naturally arises : What would our party do, if therevolution placed it immediately in power? Our answer was : 1. Wewould forthwith offer peace to all the warring peoples ; 2. We wouldannounce our peace conditions consisting of immediate liberationof all the colonies and all the oppressed and non-sovereign peoples ;3. We would immediately begin and carry out the liberation of allthe peoples oppressed by the Great-Russians ; 4. We do not deceiveourselves for one moment, we know that such conditions would beunacceptable not only to the monarchist but also to the republicanbourgeoisie of Germany, and not only to Germany, but also to thecapitalist governments of England and France .

We would be forced to carry on a revolutionary struggle againstthe German-and not only the German-bourgeoisie . This strugglewe would carry on . We are not pacifists . We are opposed to im-perialist wars over the division of spoils among the capitalists, butwe have always considered it absurd for the revolutionary prole-tariat to disavow revolutionary wars that may prove necessary inthe interests of Socialism .

The task that we outlined in No . 47 of the Social-Democrat is ofgigantic proportions . It can be solved only by a long series of greatclass conflicts between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie . However,it was not our impatience, nor our wishes, but the objective condi-tions created by the imperialist war that brought humanity to animpasse, that placed it in a dilemma : either to allow the destruc-tion of more millions of lives and utterly ruin the entire Europeancivilisation, or to hand over the power in all the civilised countriesto the revolutionary proletariat, to realise the Socialist overturn .

The great honour of beginning the series of revolutions causedwith objective inevitability by the war has fallen to the Russian pro-letariat. But the idea that the Russian proletariat is the chosenrevolutionary proletariat among the workers of the world is abso-lutely alien to us. We know full well that the proletariat of Russiais less organised, less prepared, and less class-conscious than theproletariat of other countries . It is not its special qualities but rather

45

the special coincidence of historical circumstances that has madethe proletariat of Russia for a certain, perhaps very short time, thevanguard of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world .

Russia is a peasant country, it is one of the most backward ofEuropean countries . Socialism cannot triumph there immediately.But the present character of the country in the face of a vast reserveof land retained by noblemen landowners may, to judge from theexperience of 1905, gives tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-demo-cratic revolution in Russia, and may make our revolution a prologueto the world Socialist revolution, a step forward in that direction .

In the struggle for these ideas, which have been fully confirmedby the experience of 1905 and the spring of 1917, in the struggleagainst all the other parties, our party was formed, and for theseideas we shall continue to struggle .

In Russia Socialism cannot triumph directly and immediately.But the peasant mass may bring the inevitable and ripe agrarianupheaval to the point of confiscating all the immense holdings ofthe landowners . This has always been our slogan and now the Petro-grad and the Central Committees of our party, as well as the paperof our party, Pravda, have again brought it to the fore . Theproletariat is going to fight for this slogan without closing its eyesto the inevitability of cruel class conflicts between the hired agri-cultural workers and the impoverished peasants closely allied withthem on the one hand and the prosperous peasants whose positionhas been strengthened by the agrarian "reform" of Stolypin (1907-1914) on the other . One must not forget that 104 peasant Deputiesin the first (1906) and second (1907) Dumas came forward with arevolutionary agrarian bill demanding the nationalisation of alllands and the management of such lands by local committees electedon the basis of complete democracy .

Such an overturn would, in itself, not be Socialism as yet . Butit would give a great impetus to the world labour movement . Itwould greatly strengthen the position of a Socialist overturn inRussia, and of its influence on the agricultural workers and thepoorest peasants. It would enable the city proletariat to develop,on the strength of this influence, a revolutionary organisation likethe Soviets of Workers' Deputies, to replace by them the old instru .ments of oppression used by the bourgeois states, the army, thepolice, the bureaucracy ; to put into effect, under the pressure of theunbearably burdensome imperialist war and its consequences, a

46

series of revolutionary measures to insure control over the produc-tion and distribution of goods .

The Russian proletariat single-handed cannot bring the Socialistrevolution to a victorious conclusion . But it can give the RussianRevolution a mighty sweep such as would create most favourableconditions for a Socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it .It can help create more favourable circumstances for its most im-portant, most trustworthy and most reliable collaborator, the Euro-pean and the American Socialist proletariat, to join in the decisivebattles .

Let the sceptics despair because of the temporary triumph withinthe European Socialist movement of such disgusting lackeys of theimperialist bourgeoisie as the Scheidemanns, the Legiens, the Davidsand Co. in Germany ; Sembat, Guesde, Renaudel and Co . in France ;the Fabians and the Labourites in England. We are firmly convincedthat this filthy froth on the surface of the world labour movementwill be soon swept away by the waves of the revolution .

In Germany there is already a seething unrest of the proletarianmasses that contributed so much to humanity and Socialism by theirpersistent, unyielding, sustained organisational work during themany decades of the period of European "calm" from 1871 to 1914 .The future of German Socialism is represented not by the traitors,the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Davids and Co ., nor by the vacillatingand spineless ones, Haase, Kautsky and their ilk, who have beenenfeebled by the routine of the period of political "peace ."

The future belongs to that tendency which has given us KarlLiebknecht, which has created the "Spartacus group," * which hascarried on its propaganda in the Bremen Arbeiterpolitik.

The objective circumstances of the imperialist war make it certainthat the revolution will not be limited to the first stage of the Rus-sian Revolution, that the revolution will not be limited to Russia .

The German proletariat is the most trustworthy, the most reliableally of the Russian and the world proletarian revolution .

When in November, 1914, our party had put forward the slogan"Turn the imperialist war into a civil war" of the oppressed againstthe oppressors for the attainment of Socialism, this slogan was metwith the hatred and malicious ridicule of the social-patriots and withthe incredulous, sceptical, meek and expectant silence of the Social-

*The group of revolutionary internationalists who later formed the Com-munist Party of Germany .Ed.

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Democratic "centre." David, the German social-chauvinist andsocial-imperialist, called it "insane," while Mr. Plekhanov, the rep-resentative of Russian (and Anglo-French) social-chauvinism, ofSocialism in words, imperialism in deeds, called it "a dream farce"(Mittelding zwischen Traum and Komoedie*) . The representativesof the "centre" confined themselves to silence or to cheap little jokesabout this "straight line drawn in empty space ."

Now, after March, 1917, only the blind can fail to see that thisslogan is correct. The turning of the imperialist war into civil waris becoming a fact .

Long live the proletarian revolution that is beginning in Europe!Upon the instruction of the departing comrades, members of the

R.S.-D.L.P. (united under the Central Committee), who have passedon this letter at a meeting held April 8, 1917.

N. LENIN.

Written April 8, 1917, and first pubished from manuscript in the Proletar.skaia Revolutsia, No . 2, 1921 .

* Something between a dream and a comedy.Ed.

4 8

LITTLE LENIN LIBRARYThese volumes contain Lenin's and Stalin's shorter writings which havebecome classics of the theory and practice of Leninism, as well as selectionsfrom their writings dealing with special topics .

X65

I . THE TEACHINGS OF KARL MARX $0.152 . THE WAR AND THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL 0.203 . THE ROAD TO POWER, by Joseph Stalin 0.154 . WHAT IS TO BE DONE? 0.505 . THE PARIS COMMUNE 0.206. THE REVOLUTION OF 1905 0.207. RELIGION 0.158. LETTERS FROM AFAR 0.159. THE TASKS OF THE PROLETARIAT IN OUR REVOLUTION 0.1510. THE APRIL CONFERENCE 0.2011 . THE THREATENING CATASTROPHE AND HOW TO

FIGHT IT 0.2012 . WILL THE BOLSHEVIKS RETAIN STATE POWER? 0.1513 . ON THE EVE OF OCTOBER 0.1514 . STATE AND REVOLUTION 0.3015 . IMPERIALISM, THE HIGHEST STAGE OF CAPITALISM 0.3016. LENIN, Three Speeches by Joseph Stalin 0.1017 . A LETTER TO AMERICAN WORKERS 0.0518 . FOUNDATIONS OF LENINISM, by Joseph Stalin 0.4019 . PROBLEMS OF LENINISM, by Joseph Stalin 0.2520 . "LEFT-WING" COMMUNISM 0.2521 . PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION AND RENEGADE KAUTSKY 0.3022. TWO TACTICS OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY IN THE

DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION 0.3023 . WOMEN AND SOCIETY 0.1024. WAR AND THE WORKERS 0.1025 . DIALECTICAL AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM,

by Joseph Stalin 0.1526 . THE YOUNG GENERATION 0.1527 . THE TASKS OF THE YOUTH, by Joseph Stalin 0.15